How SimonC started their print or packaging design journey

Summary

We are looking for a process diagram to visually describe the process of filtering spam, viruses and phishing attempts from email, where this filtering occurs “in the cloud” and is delivered as a service.

What inspires you and how do you envision the design for your business?

About Us

We are an Australian company who specialises in securing Internet technologies for our global business customers. We have been operating for 7 years, and in that time have built and currently deliver several “software as a service” services to help businesses manage email, archival, staff web browsing, etc.

About the design

We need a process diagram which visualises the process of filtering massive quantities of spam, viruses, phishing and other threats from business emails. Unlike on-site appliance-style products which perform similar functions, this filtering occurs in several layers within our infrastructure “in the cloud”, remote from our customers’ networks and servers. This model allows us to defend our customers against Internet-borne threats before they approach customers’ networks and staff.

Inbound and outbound customer email is first analysed by our perimeter defences which rejects obvious spam and viruses. Email which passes is then content-inspected, and is either delivered to our customers’ mail servers (for inbound mail) or the final destination (for outbound mail) if clean, or either placed in ‘quarantine’ or deleted if it contains unwanted material.

Messages which are quarantined can be inspected online via our management portal, and released (i.e. delivered) if they’re deemed acceptable.

This process diagram is likely to be used in several ways:
- Print media, brochures, flyers, posters, etc.
- On our web site
- In promotional video presentationsInitially we are looking for a static diagram for print use, but will likely request that the winning design be later animated for use online (e.g. with Flash) and in video media.

Wants

- We’re looking for a professional, bright, clean, crisp design which is not complicated with too many visual elements. The viewer should be able to understand the basic filtering model without spending more than a few seconds looking at the diagram.
- One of our key advantages is that we operate “in the cloud”, or at the Internet level as a service, with no on-site presence. The winning design will convey that clearly.
- The design should present visual depth; the subtle use of three dimensional elements, shading, gloss, reflections, etc. is encouraged.
- We like the sort of clean treatment that Apple give to their web presence.
- The designer has free reign with the selection of colours, with the exception that the diagram must predominantly use white as its background. Don’t go overboard either, we don’t want a rainbow -- choose a few complementary colours and run with them.
- In case it isn't obvious, we want artwork delivered in a scalable vector format.

Don't want

- A busy diagram which is hard to understand at a glance.
- Excessive use of dark or flat, or too many colours.
- Lots of text. Small amounts to convey meaning are OK, but the winning design will be visually intuitive without requiring excessive labelling.